Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Alexi Kaye Campbell’s pungent APOLOGIA features a magnificent Stockard Channing as both hero and monster

• By drediman
• November 24, 2018
• No Comments

Hugh Dancy, Talene Monahon and Stockard Channing in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s “Apologia” at the Laura Pels Theatre, courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company.

I recently had a chance to catch the New York premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s 2009 play Apologia at the Laura Pels Theatre, courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company. The raison d’être for the New York production is the chance for the great Stockard Channing to reprise her acclaimed performance in the play, which was seen last year in the West End (in a different production directed by Jamie Lloyd). In Apologia, Ms. Channing plays Kristin Miller, an important 1960s political activist and protestor turned renowned art historian. When her memoir is released and the priorities of her life are revealed, the veiled rift between her and her sons Peter and Simon becomes a vast chasm of immeasurable resentment.

Mr. Campbell’s Kristin is a complex, marvelous creation. I particularly liked the way the playwright paints a mostly ambivalent portrait of the woman; she’s both hero and monster. On one hand, we’re seduced by her unshakable stance on politics and art, as well as her sardonic, albeit charismatic, persona. At the same time, we’re repulsed by her neglectful – bordering on abusive – (non-)actions as a mother. In particular, Simon’s account as an abandoned child at an Italian train station (Kristin was supposed to have picked him up) is harrowing and bleakly telling. Although the play has some less than compelling stretches and the conclusion is a bit less ambivalent than I would have liked, Apologia, on the whole, is a pungent, deeply observant play that sensitively captures the inherent awkwardness of human interactions (family or not).

Director Daniel Aukin gives Mr. Campbell’s literate play an unsettled, off-kilter production, which is exactly the kind of tone the play needs. Ms. Channing is predictably magnificent as Kristin, giving a many-layered performance that, like Salome’s seven veils, are shed one-by-one until she (and we) are left with a core of deep despair and unfathomable regret. It’s a regret that Kristin has hid from the world, and more importantly herself, for most of her adult life. In Ms. Channing’s very capable hands, Kristin’s unraveling is haunting and painfully convincing. Another standout in the very good cast is Hugh Dancy, who is simply superb as Kristin’s two very different sons – each damaged in their own way. Mr. Dancy infuses each with a distinct brand of heartbreak that’s devastating to watch.

RECOMMENDED

APOLOGIA
Off-Broadway, Play
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 16